


seek on the limitless ocean a shore

by betony



Category: Indian History RPF
Genre: Gen, Palace Intrigue, Poetry, Princesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-10 02:59:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betony/pseuds/betony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five loosely connected vignettes as the Princess Zebunissa observes the early years of her father's reign.</p>
            </blockquote>





	seek on the limitless ocean a shore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lightningwaltz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/gifts).



> zenana=women's quarters in a Muslim house.
> 
> Historical Note: In 1658, the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan fell grievously ill, and his four sons, detecting their chance to take the throne, all began to fight a desperate war of sucession. It soon became clear that the two front-runners were Shah Jahan's eldest son and chosen heir, Dara Shikoh, and Aurangazeb, third son and governor of Deccan. Ultimately, Aurangazeb managed to imprison the ailing Shah Jahan in the Red Fort of Delhi, defeat and ultimately execute his brothers, and rise to power as the last emperor of the Golden Age of Mughal India.

Silver anklets jangling, the princess Zebunissa races through the zenana without the dignity becoming to her twenty-one years. At one open door, she calls: “The danger has passed!”; at another, “Hail the Emperor Aurangazeb!”; and at others, “My father has prevailed!” 

All of the women who hear her news react differently. Some fall to their knees to thank God the merciful for their lord’s survival. Others turn a canny look towards the Red Fort, where the old Emperor still wastes away, tended only by his firstborn daughter. Zebunissa’s own mother dares to say a prayer for the poor prince Dara Shikoh, once heir to the throne and now facing a lifetime of imprisonment; but such is the fate of those who defy Zebunissa’s father. 

Only Lady Roshanara shows no reaction as she reclines on a pile of carpets, servants fanning her in the sweltering noon heat. Despite herself Zebunissa is disappointed; it would have been nice, she thinks, to surprise her aunt for once. But this aunt, after all, has schemed and strategized with her father with for longer, most likely, than Zebunissa has lived. If anyone deserves the first right to her father’s secrets, it is the woman who kept him informed of all the palace intrigues even during the long years he spent exiled from court. 

“Who brought you the news?” Lady Roshanara does not open her eyes, only tilts back her bejeweled head. 

“One of the eunuchs,” Zebunissa says vaguely. “I can’t be bothered to remember which one.” This is true, but it is just as true that giving up a name will result in the poor eunuch’s discreet murder. Roshanara is too crafty to allow any such leaks of information in the net she’s woven around the zenana. She’ll find them in the end, no matter what Zebunissa does; she always does. 

“Is it true, though, what they say of Father? Has he really won?” 

The corners of Roshanara’s mouth turn up like those of a sated tigress. That is all the answer Zebunissa needs. 

“God be praised,” she whispers. 

* * *

Months later, she is holding a poetry contest, of all things, when word reaches the zenana that her father has finally had his brother Dara Shikoh assassinated. 

The contests are a long-standing custom of Zebunissa's. From the generous allowance her father has always given her, even when he was dependant on his own father in turn, she has always supported the greatest poets of the age, and today, they gather on the other side of the curtain and make their sallies to her prompts; others send back challenges of their own, and she calculates meter and meaning as quickly as she can for the appropriate reply. 

“As talented as she is beautiful!” they say when she speaks, these men who have never cast eyes upon her face. “May Heaven smile upon our princess!” 

After all these time, she expects their compliments are sincere, but she cannot measure herself.by the standards of others. She has read and studied the works of masters, and she not be content with producing anything less herself. 

Her little sisters Zeenat and Zubdat sit with her sometimes, making shy couplets of their own as she urges them on with a smile. Today she is lucky to have both beside her, and she is just finishing up a flirtatious response when an eunuch bends to whisper in Zebunissa’s ear. 

She stands at once, pulling her sisters to their feet along with her. “Until tomorrow,” she says curtly to the poets and turns to the door, maidservants whirling into motion to open doors, to hold apart curtains for the imperial princesses to pass. 

Roshanara is already standing beside the Head Eunuch; since the Empress's death, Roshanara is first lady of the zenana, as all well know. Obediantly 

The Head Eunuch clears his throat and begins to read her father’s message, sent directly from his throne room. 

First Aurangazeb reminds them how, by the grace of God, he has prevailed against his brother, who disrespects both Islam and the legacy of their ancestors. But tragically he comes to understand that his brother’s heresies are not to be tolerated and that his very existence breeds rebellion and discontent among the people. For this reason Dara Shikoh had been put to death. 

Zubdat claps a hand to her mouth in horror, and Zeenat begins to pray. Roshanara laughs, a trifle too loudly. Zebunissa forces her face to stay expressionless. 

“What more is there?” she asks the eunuch. 

He bows and continues. 

The Emperor adds this: that Dara Shikoh’s orphaned daughter Jahanzeb has presented herself before his throne, seeking mercy, and so will be sent to live with them. He expects his daughter, in particular his dear Zebunissa, and his beloved sister Roshanara to ensure she has every comfort. 

Zubdat and Zeenat clap their hands and begin excited speculations: when will Janni arrive, what will she look like, how will she bear the disgrace of her father? Roshanara smiles indulgently at them and claps her hands, telling the servants to go ahead and prepare chambers for the Lady Jahanzeb 

In the back of the room, where no one can see her, Zebunissa's mouth curls with displeasure. 

* * *

One of the guilty secrets of Zebunissa’s life is how much she resents her cousin Jahanzeb. If it were a folk tale, like the ones she catches the kitchen maids repeating as they cook over the braziers in the courtyard, it would only be because Janni was beautiful, and Zebunissa, whose loveliness is famous in all Hindustan, was envious. But Janni is also no more than eight years of age; not only is every child beautiful at such an age, but Zebunissa deserves better rivals than the child of a disgraced and decapitated prince. 

No, what Zebunissa resents is how Janni took both her favorite uncle and her favorite aunt away from her. 

Zebunissa remembers being no older than Janni, the pride of her father’s life for having committed the holy Koran to memory at so young an age. He had held a great feast in her honor, and from the other side of the curtains, she could hear the pride in his voice as he spoke to his brothers and fellow courtiers of his prodigiously clever daughter. She had pleased him, she knows, and thought was like a star of good fortune, burning bright in the center of her chest. 

Later her aunt Jahanara, the most wonderful woman in all the world, cuddled her in her lap as she took Zebunissa to see her gardens as a reward for her hard work. They were nothing short of striking, flowers heavy with scent and octagonal pools reflecting the brilliance of the sky into Zebunissa’s dazzled eyes. Zebunissa still remembers: her aunt’s musky perfume, the roughness of the burn scars on Jahanara’s arm from the fire not two years ago, her low-voiced murmur as she described how she had come to form the plans for the garden, how she had thought to set a hedge there, a small jamun tree there. 

Then her uncle Dara had joined them, and when Zebunissa told him she thought the garden of Paradise must be like one of her aunt’s creations, Uncle Dara had only laughed. Father would have reminded her of her sacrilege, as he should. She had known, even then, to beg forgiveness, but instead she had wanted Uncle Dara to laugh again and had told them other things she wondered from her study of the Koran. They listened and did not scold and answered her questions with ones of their own that made her think. 

Uncle Dara taught her of the Sufis, their songs of divine devotion, and their whirling dances, while Jahanara interjected with stories of the Hindu gods learned from her father’s Rajput wives. In those days they spoke to Zebunissa often of wonderful things like that: ideas that made her heart beat more quickly and reflections on God the powerful that seemed so right they must be true. 

She had been a lucky girl then, with her father’s love to feed her heart and his siblings’ words to fuel her soul—until Janni had been born. 

Of course Uncle Dara should love Janni above all others; she was his daughter, after all, and certain Zebunissa’s own father held her dearest than any in the world. But it was losing Jahanara’s attention and favor that stung, watching Jahanara teach Janni to walk in the gardens, Jahanara laugh at she dressed her not-quite-namesake up in the finest pearls and silks, Jahanara speak to Janni of the mysteries of the world instead of Zebunissa, who was clever and old enough to understand them. 

Zebunissa had turned to her poets instead. They were almost enough to quell her loneliness, waiting patiently on the other side of the curtains, but not enough—nowhere near enough—for her to forgive Janni. 

So when a frightened, dirty, tear-streaked girl crawls from the palanquin sent from Prince Dara’s camp and looks around wildly for a friendly face, Zebunissa steps back and, without a word, lets her go directly into Roshanara’s care. 

It’s months until she understands what a mistake that is. 

* * *

To her father she says: “The Lady Jahanzeb will not eat. Day by day she wastes away; Night after night her maidservants beg her to take a morsel of rice, a sweetmeat, even a glass of milk, and she turns her face to the wall instead.” 

Her father’s weary face goes even unhappier for a moment. “My sister Roshanara has been kind to her. Why does the girl wish to repay her by causing her—and Janni herself— such anguish?” 

_Because_ , Zebunissa thinks fiercely, _because you have never lived behind the veils, my father, and you do not see that to harm ourselves or each other is the only weapon we possess._

Father does not know, nor does any other man of what has happened in these months between Janni and Roshanara. The truth of the matter is that Roshanara wants more than anything to be loved. It is why she clung so desperately to her brother Aurangazeb, the other forgotten child among Shah Jahan’s brood. For the first few days of, but Janni, angry and terrified, rebuffs her. It is the worst thing she could have done. 

Roshanara starts subtly, as she always does, bringing up the name of Dara Shikoh. At first Janni is eager to speak of her father, to share any memories. As time goes by, Roshanara speaks of Dara’s apostasy, and his violent disagreements with his brothers, and that he only achieved his great victories with the support of his father. Dara Shikoh was nothing without Shah Jahan’s power at his back. Aurangazeb had won his throne through his own efforts. 

With every taunt, Janni’s ire grew; and with every retort from her niece, Roshanara’s anger festered in turn. By a month’s time, they would not speak to each other, save when Roshanara called Janni before her to remind her of her father; and Zebunissa, sympathetic but still all too familiar with how it felt to be the cousin who had fallen out of favor, only stood by and watched. 

Janni asked once, through tears, if even what they murmured in the markets was true, that Aurangazeb and Roshanara had had their brother Dara’s decapitated head presented to the Old Emperor as a gift. 

Roshanara had struck her across the face. 

Zebunissa, watching in quiet horror, had said nothing: how terrible to have to hear such things, and wonder. How terrible to be accused of being party to such ghoulish treatment of your own brother. How terrible to be uncertain if your own father were capable of such a thing. 

After Roshanara stalked from the room, after Janni's sobs had subsided, she had looked up from her crumpled sprawl on the floor and met her cousin's eyes . Zebunissa had been able to read the question in her eyes: _If it were your father feeding vultures, and mine resplendent on the Peacock Throne, what would you do?_

Zebunissa had no answer then; she has none now. All she has is what few other women have: the right to bring her concerns to her father and a chance of having him listen. Father does not care, nor does any other man, of what happens in the zenana unless it comes to a matter of life and death, as this has. Not unless Zebunissa finds a way to speak to them so that they will understand. 

“I do not know, Father,” she replies instead. “But I fear she’ll starve herself to death before long. Janni’s grief knows no bounds.” 

The Emperor Aurangazeb, most powerful man in the world, shakes his head, helpless in the face of one girl’s iron will. 

“Is there nothing you can do for her?” He asks, and she marvels that he trusts her so, when even Roshanara has failed. But Zebunissa is always honest with herself; she does not trust even herself with Janni’s care. Even if she could, too much has happened for Janni ever to be happy in the midst of the women who all belong, one way or another, to the man who destroyed her life. 

“No,” says Zebunissa, and makes her decision quickly, leaving behind a child’s resentment to send Janni to the two people left in the world who she still loves and trusts and who love her in return. “But the Lady Jahanara can.” 

* * *

After the palanquin carrying Janni has departed for the Red Fort, Zebunissa sits alone in her rooms and begins to write. It is only the end of a poem, she knows; much more has to be written before it’s complete. But right now, this is the cry of her heart, and if she does not divert it onto paper, it will harden in her heart like a cancer. 

>   
>  As out of the nest   
>  The fledgling birds fall   
>  And fluttering, helpless, are caught in the  
>  snares, 
> 
> So see after all   
>  Thou art caught like the rest,   
>  For, flying too boldly, thy feeble wings fail,  
>  And thou dost bewail  
>  Thy fate, thus enmeshed in the net of thy cares.

A sadder poem than the couplets she composes for her contests, but far more sincere. Those were nothing but diversion to occupy her mind. These new poems she writes are worth more than that: they are the words that every woman of the zenana would shout from the rooftops if only people had ears to listen. 

One day soon, she hopes, she will marry and be free of the royal zenana. Until then, though, she means to speak; invisible behind her curtains she might be, but voiceless never. 

_Makhfi_ , she signs her name, deliberately. _The hidden one._

**Author's Note:**

> The title (though cut and paraphrased)--as well as the excerpt of a poem in the last section--both come from the Princess Zebunissa's own work. I've used _The Diwan of Zeb-un-Nissa_ , translated by Magan Lal and Jessie Duncan Westbrook, (1913) as my primary source for this, and the poem excerpted is the tenth in their collection. For any interested, the introduction gives a thrilling--if perhaps not precisely factual, given modern historical work--account of her life, and the work itself is now in the public domain. 
> 
> I'm afraid this namedrops quite a lot of Mughal history without a great deal of explanation. Most of this was due to research I did after wondering who these people that lightningwaltz had even requested _were_ ; having done so, I was instantly fascinated by the Mughal court of this era, particularly the women who lived at this time and the various ways in which they sought control over their lives, whether successfully or not. My research into this time period is nowhere near complete, and please forgive any errors, and/or feel free to let me know about them!
> 
> A few notes about outcomes for these women, if anyone is interested:
> 
> JAHANARA, eldest daughter of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal, the woman for which the Taj Mahal was built, did in fact both support her favorite brother Dara during the war of succession and spend the last years of her father's life with him. Afterwards, she returned from the Red Fort and reconciled with her brother, eventually replacing her younger sister Roshanara as first lady of the royal zenana.
> 
> ROSHANARA, who's come down in popular culture as apparently always being second best to her older sister Jahanara, ultimately wound up banished from her brother's court--some sources attribute this to a string of lovers, some to her unpopularity in the zenana, some to greed for power and money. Whatever the reason, she spent her last days in seclusion despite her support of her brother during Shah Jahan's rule, when Aurangazeb was sent from court to live as Governor of the Deccan and Roshanara tirelessly passed along information to him. 
> 
> JAHANZEB BANU BEGUM was raised in the Red Fort by her grandfather Shah Jahan and aunt Jahanara in a far happier environment than the one she had left. In fact, she married her first cousin Azam--Aurangazeb's own son!--in what was, according to record, a fairly successful marriage, even riding into battle on an elephant alongside her husband. Her son Bidar Bakht was allegedly Aurangazeb's favorite grandchild. 
> 
> ZEBUNISSA continued to write poetry as Makhfi, apparently with her father's full support, despite the fact that Aurangazeb famously frowned upon the arts; moreover Zebunissa was decidedly partisan, like her aunt and uncle, to the more liberal sects of Islam rather than the orthodox practices her father favored. She was unquestionably her father's favorite daughter, until she supported her brother in a rebellion against him. Once discovered, she fell from favor and was imprisoned for decades until her death. She never married. That said, the end of the fiftieth poem in the Lal/Westbrook translation reads, despite beginning with a description of her woes:
> 
>  
> 
> _Blessèd is Makhfi: God has given to her_  
>  _The pearl of words, jewel of song divine,_  
>  _Fairer than spoils of ocean or of mine._
> 
>  
> 
> I like to think that in the end, she was content.


End file.
